I imagine I wasn't the only person who started to worry when my browser couldn't find UD's server for about twelve hours yesterday. Sad to say, I've developed a pretty strong Tard jones lately and although I'm not mainlining yet, still the thought that Dembski might have come to his senses, burnt his server and sent out a press release saying he had nothing to do with UD and it was some other Dembski at East Jesus Bible Tech and BarBQ that did it chilled me to the bone. What if the Tard Mine had closed forever??

Well, luckily, the site came back to life around dawn, but still, can we ever really depend on Dembski and UD for our daily Tard needs again? I don't think so.

But luckily for us all, a brand new source of 200 proof raw, unrefined rotgut Tard has appeared! Halleujah! Better yet, it appeared in this month's Skeptic magazine, which will probably still be printing when Dembski and UD have gone to that Big Brazier in the sky.

Skeptic printed, "Two Reviews of The God Delusion", one by Norman Levitt and one by that Zen Tardmaster, Deepak Chopra. And fellow addicts, this is A1 Prime Quality Tard, Tard fit for a Dembski. Some examples:

"I presume that any reader of Skeptic Magazine will root for Dawkins and cheer his attack on pseudoscience, mysticism, religious superstition, and all things supernatural. Which by implication means that there is no rational rebuttal to such an argument as The God Delusion presents."

"I once went to a university debate between an erudite philosopher and a Jesuit priest. The philosopher stood up and delivered an hour's worth of arguments for why God didn't exist. The Jesuit stood up and said, 'My mother told me He did, and I believe her.' The audience gave him a loud round of applause."

"...I must assume that my readers understand the basics of Darwinian evolution and its description of how life evolved. The key terms are random mutation, competition, adaption, and survival."

"... to be truly viable, genetics has to be consistent with quantum physics..."

"The ability of objects and events to be everywhere at once seems like an attribute of God - omnipresence. The ability of electrons separated by millions of light years to 'talk' to each other seems like another attribute of God - omniscience. This doesn't mean that God explains the universe. It means that there may be governing forces at work that allow the existence of universal consciousness. The self-aware universe is a plausible theory. Many writers have described it, although Dawkins disdains such theories."

"Dawkins argues vociferously that natural selection isn't random - the better adapted species are the one (sic) that survives - but he is equally vociferous that genetic mutation is random..."

"Dawkins argues, as any arch materialist must, that the universe is not conscious. He holds that humans are conscious because chemicals complexly collide in the brain to proudce a phantom we ignorantly call the mind. ... Common sense finds it hard to take this argument seriously, however, because it leads to nonsense. The brain contains an enormous amount of water and salt. Are we to assume that water is intelligent, or salt is conscious? If they aren't, then we must assume that throwing water and salt together - along with about six other basic building blocks of organic chemicals - suddenly makes them intelligent. The bald fact is that Dawkins defends an absurd position because he cannot make the leap to a different set of assumptions, such as:

o Consciousness is part of existence. It wasn't created by molecules.

o Intelligence is an aspect of consciousness.

o Intelligence grows as life grows. Both evolve from within.

o The universe evolved along intelligent lines.

I realize I have dropped a [TARD]bomb into the discussion."

He goes on for another page and a half, but I have to stop here and just inhale some of this Tard With Gravy. Get the Vol 13, No 2 issue of Skeptic if you're hungry too. Hurry, before Sal beats you to it and steals all the best arguments.